Kate's Ink

P365 Day 2: About to pounce

2009-07-11T10:32:00.001-04:00

Project 365 is all about documenting the things important to a person, and I couldn't show off one of my babies without introducing the other. This is Joe, who joined Casa S. in June 2006. She's the naughty one. Fun facts about Joe:Her name is Joe, and just Joe. It is not short for Josephine, despite what my mother says.Joe likes balls of aluminum foil, sitting on the computer keyboard (like

P365 Day 1: Fred's pearly whites

2009-07-10T18:14:00.004-04:00

Meet Fred, showing off her lion pedigree. Fred has definitely become acclimated to The Great Indoors since I first met her in March 2006. (Here's the original "Oops, I let a cat in the house" post.) Fun facts about Fred:Her name is Fred, and just Fred. It is not short for Fredrika, despite what my mother says.She loves crinkly things. Especially in the middle of the night.She weighs in at about

Because I'm too lazy to get a tattoo ...

2009-07-10T11:48:00.004-04:00

... I figured I'd get the Zuni bear design in a ring instead. Certainly much less permanent.Cross your fingers that I win the eBay auction. Six days left.Regarding the tattoo, I'm kind of glad I took a friend's advice about tattoos: "Everyone wants one so they'll stand out. Now everyone has one and you stand out if you don't." (Yes, I take advice even from people with no sense of propriety.)

P365 Day 0: The view from my bed

2009-07-09T07:16:00.004-04:00

I'm still not sure I'm going to go with Project 365 over a daily microfiction, but I thought I'd at least share what I see when I wake up in the morning. I'll admit I did a little photo manip on this one because I couldn't get the camera blurry enough.No matter where I live, no matter the time of year, I sleep on the side of the bed facing the window. I'm a morning person through and through, and

Microfic or Project 365?

2009-07-08T18:33:00.002-04:00

I have a friend who wants me to write a book. A book! This person keeps insisting I have a book inside me, that everything I love — every story, every song — wouldn't exist had somebody not put nose to grindstone and written it down.I dot my life with narratives in my head — is that neurotic? — but I don't think in book-length; I think in microfic. (My Flashshot will be here through 7/16. The

Pour me a Drank

2009-07-06T10:19:00.004-04:00

After reading an article online about Drank, a self-proclaimed "anti-energy drink," I decided I had to try it. I mean, I've tried a bajillion energy drinks (all in the name of research, I tell ya), but this was the first anti-energy drink on my short list. Yay, innovation!Problem? I couldn't find it in the first few stores I checked in the Memphis area. Then I came across a Drank Deuce shot for

I say music, you say ____?

2009-07-02T23:49:00.004-04:00

For those of you who don't know how important music is to me, consider this: I drove to Nashville today for a little shopping, and the highlight of my trip was listening to my iPod for three hours on the way home.Most everyone I know has a song attached to them in my mind -- a song they like, an inside joke, something we share. Stargazergirl is Queen's "We Are the Champions." Grrface is Jill

Meltdown

2009-06-27T20:23:00.004-04:00

You know that Hershey's USB drive I posted about a couple of weeks ago? It just broke. All the files are gone and the drive is unreadable. It was the second time I used it.I knew I should've gone with the Mr. Goodbar drive. Peanuts are very reliable.

Standard warning: Do not try this at home

2009-06-22T15:32:00.004-04:00

I'm helping my mother go through the Crawford family trunk, and this was among some newspaper clippings from the late 1800s and early 1900s. For those who can't see the image, it reads:Breaks a Cold in a DayAnd Cures Any Cough That is Curable. Noted Physician's Formula. Get from any druggist "Two ounces of Glycerine and half an ounce of Concentrated Pine compound. Mix these with half a pint

The vaca from my vaca

2009-06-22T12:13:00.003-04:00

I've started planning my holiday vacation six-plus months in advance. This isn't anything unusual for me; I'm the kind of person who lives for vacations and starts the 100- (or 120- or 150-) day countdown as soon as a date is set. "A vaca from your permanent vaca?" a friend asked me last night. Yes. It'll be a little harder on the pocketbook now that we're living on one salary -- and that might

On Regina Spektor

2009-06-19T15:19:00.004-04:00

Any Regina Spektor fans out there? I'm a little late to the game, having only "discovered" her by way of her Way to Normal duet with Ben Folds, "You Don't Know Me."(That video is directed by Tim and Eric. Expect T&E-style visual candy.)I now have two Spektor albums – Soviet Kitsch and Begin to Hope – and plan to get her newest, Far, when it comes out June 23. The entire album now is available for

Revisiting the iPod 8-Ball

2009-06-15T16:23:00.001-04:00

This is something I stole from Smacky three years ago. I thought I'd revisit it with my much heftier collection of music. ^_^[Open your favorite computerized music player, set it to shuffle, and then ask each of these questions.]What do you think of me, iPod?"My Friends," NOFXWill I have a happy life?"Any Colour You Like," Pink FloydWhat do my friends really think of me?"My Sharona," The KnackHow

The nightmare bee

2009-06-13T05:36:00.002-04:00

Editor's nightmare: I just woke up from a dream in which I couldn't spell recombinant.I was standing in line at Wendy's, writing down the order of the person in front of me. He was this kind of smarmy guy who was complaining he couldn't order an appetizer. But whatever he did order had the word "recombinant" in it. I wrote it down as "recombinent," and Paul, who was behind me in line, gently

The obvious joke has been made in the first paragraph

2009-06-11T19:13:00.005-04:00

This is out of the realm of something I'd normally post, but as I told a friend the other day, it's not that gross once you think about it. So ... yeah. This is what the Depakote did to me. (No, it didn't give me hairy palms. I already thought of that joke.) It made my hair fall out! A lot of it!I'd take a better picture (wha-?!?!), but alas, I've already thrown the damn thing away.The only

Eye candy

2009-06-09T15:23:00.005-04:00

A regular ol' Hershey's Miniatures chocolate bar ...... Or is it?Hershey's and portable disk drives go together as well as Disney's Aristocats and cat food. (There's also a Disney's Aristocats-branded cat litter, but I can't find a picture of it.)For better or worse, I've bought in to the cross-media brand engine and now own two cans of Aristocats food and one 2GB Hershey's drive.

900 Posts (plus a little housekeeping)

2009-06-05T12:33:00.003-04:00

My previous post was the 900th Kate's Ink post. Holy moly. That's a lot of words pouring forth from my fingers.P.S. Monstee, FF, SGG and Grr: Your domains have been renewed for another year. Happy Birthday, SGG (tomorrow!!!) and Happy belated Christmas to the rest of you. <3

"There's this woman, she's a hurricane"

2009-06-02T13:00:00.002-04:00

The Atlantic hurricane season has officially started, something that holds some importance now that I live on the East Coast. Federal forecasters are saying there will be nine to 14 named storms, while Colorado State's annual forecast is predicting 11. If CSU is right, the last named storm of the season will be Tropical Storm or Hurricane Kate. What a dubious honor! And as long as it's not so big

Cleaning files

2009-05-29T16:02:00.001-04:00

The blog is temporarily hosted over here while I clean up some files. WordPress is giving me as much trouble as Blogger.Grr.

Redesign?

2009-05-26T10:24:00.002-04:00

I'm waffling on redesigning the KI blog page. I'm also waffling about putting it on the front page of KI.com instead of the subdirectory. I'm also waffling on whether to move to WordPress. Thoughts?P.S. I've had a chip on my shoulder since I got one poke in the ribs about the craptastic, never-updated-the-placeholder front page, so moving the blog there would take care of two redesigns in one.

Freebie for my MEM friends

2009-05-24T18:00:00.004-04:00

Memphis folks: Pink Palace is offering three-month trial memberships to the museum, planetarium and Lichterman Nature Center. The deal is only available on their website and you print your own temp membership card.In addition to free admission for two adults and their related children, the membership includes a members' preview of the Under the Sea IMAX film and a preview of the Dinosaurs and Sea

Birthdays and sisters

2009-05-19T10:37:00.003-04:00

Happy 29th birthday to me! And I'm not one of those people who's turning, like, 34 and telling people, "I'm 29 and holding, durrr." I actually am 29 today.I met Cari, the older of my two younger sisters, yesterday. I actually picked her out from far away because she was wearing a shirt that I also own: a gray, long-sleeve, men's thermal-knit sweater. Long-sleeve thermal in May in Memphis. ... I

Paul in space

2009-05-14T22:04:00.004-04:00

Yeah, he didn't fit. At all.The launch, as I tweeted a couple of days ago, was awesome. It's hard to clarify in 140 characters, but when I said I was bored, my boredom stemmed from getting to the Astronaut Hall of Fame at 9:30 a.m. for a 2 p.m. launch. We were told to get there between 7 and 10 a.m. to get a parking space. We did get a parking space -- and a good one at that -- but the hall of

Moving magic

2009-05-06T19:28:00.003-04:00

I've never made it through a move without liberal use of Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I probably never will.That mark in the office where the movers dropped the cherry wood chest? Gone. The handprint where Paul fell trying to fix the printer? Gone. The huge spot in the den where the blue La-Z-Boy rubbed off on the wall? Totally gross ... and now gone. So, yeah, I fully endorse the Magic Eraser. Good

(Mostly) outdated notions

2009-04-28T07:54:00.003-04:00

I still distinguish between nauseous and nauseated, though Merriam-Webster doesn't anymore.I still capitalize Bohemian and know decimation has a literal definition.I'm disturbed that M-W's word of the year for 2007, as chosen by online voters, was w00t ... because it isn't even a word (yet).However, as I hang my head in shame, I'll admit I've relaxed usage of Google from noun to verb form, though

We'll be together soon?

2009-04-27T21:12:00.003-04:00

If you've e-mailed me this week and I've been incommunicado, it's because this whole adoption thing is sapping all my energy. A couple of posts ago, I mentioned getting an e-mail from my birth mother. Things got kind of wild 'n' crazy after that.I have two sisters: Cari, who's almost 25, and Lynn, who's 23. Two little sisters. Kate just went from being an "only" to being an "oldest." Both of them